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ANTHROPOLOGY Copyright © 2018

The Authors, some
Current evidence allows multiple models for the rights reserved;
exclusive licensee
peopling of the Americas American Association
for the Advancement
of Science. No claim to
Ben A. Potter1*, James F. Baichtal2, Alwynne B. Beaudoin3, Lars Fehren-Schmitz4, original U.S. Government
C. Vance Haynes5, Vance T. Holliday5, Charles E. Holmes1, John W. Ives6, Robert L. Kelly7, Works. Distributed
Bastien Llamas8, Ripan S. Malhi9, D. Shane Miller10, David Reich11,12,13, Joshua D. Reuther1,14, under a Creative
Stephan Schiffels15, Todd A. Surovell7 Commons Attribution
NonCommercial
Some recent academic and popular literature implies that the problem of the colonization of the Americas has License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).
been largely resolved in favor of one specific model: a Pacific coastal migration, dependent on high marine pro-
ductivity, from the Bering Strait to South America, thousands of years before Clovis, the earliest widespread cul-
tural manifestation south of the glacial ice. Speculations on maritime adaptations and typological links (stemmed
points) across thousands of kilometers have also been advanced. A review of the current genetic, archeological,
and paleoecological evidence indicates that ancestral Native American population expansion occurred after
16,000 years ago, consistent with the archeological record, particularly with the earliest securely dated sites after

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~15,000 years ago. These data are largely consistent with either an inland (ice-free corridor) or Pacific coastal
routes (or both), but neither can be rejected at present. Systematic archeological and paleoecological investiga-
tions, informed by geomorphology, are required to test each hypothesis.

INTRODUCTION More nuanced consideration of the proposed alternatives can also

Investigation of the peopling of the Americas has generated decades
of scholarly studies, increasingly illuminated by paleoecological and
particularly paleogenetic research. There are currently several models
of the peopling process differing with respect to timing, routes, and
affiliation with modern (and ancient) populations in Asia and the
Americas (Fig. 1). One perspective that has become prominent in
the last decade is of an early entry (~25,000 to 15,000 years ago) into
the Americas via a Pacific coastal migration. This perspective fur-
ther implies ecological adaptations (for example, the kelp highway
hypothesis) and, more recently, typological relationships (stemmed
points) (1–5). We believe that this perspective, although commonly
disseminated in the popular press (6–8), is a prematurely narrow
interpretation of current evidence, which yields far less certainty.
Some proponents (1) also assert that there is near-complete agree-
ment among archeologists on these issues, but the most recent relevant
survey (9) shows that archeologists remain divided, with substan-
tial numbers thinking migrants used both interior and coastal routes,
as well as strong skepticism for several proposed pre-Clovis sites.
1
Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775,
USA. 2Tongass National Forest, U.S. Forest Service, Thorne Bay, AK 99919, USA.
3
Royal Alberta Museum, Edmonton, Alberta T5J 0G2, Canada. 4UCSC Paleogenomics
Lab, Department of Anthropology, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa
Cruz, CA 95064, USA. 5School of Anthropology and Department of Geosciences,
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. 6Institute of Prairie Archaeology, Uni-
versity of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R3, Canada. 7Department of Anthropology,
University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA. 8Australian Centre for Ancient
DNA, Environment Institute, School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide,
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. 9Department of Anthropology and Carl R. Woese
Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. 10Department
of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS
39759, USA. 11Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Bos­ton, MA 02115, USA.
12
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
13
Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, Cambridge,
MA 02142, USA. 14Archaeology Department, University of Alaska Museum of the
North, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA. 15Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck
Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena 07745, Germany.
*Corresponding author. Email: bapotter@alaska.edu
be found (10–12). Here, we evaluate the claims made in (1) and
elsewhere with respect to the current genetic, archeological, and
paleoecological data and identify model constraints. We also sug-
gest avenues of further research to refine models of the peopling of
the Americas. Due to multiple dating techniques presented in this
paper, we use years ago for calibrated radiocarbon dates, OSL and
cosmogenic dates, and genetic age estimates. All of these are rough-
ly comparable.
GENETIC AND ARCHEOLOGICAL CONGRUENCE
Genetic studies provide independent information on the timing and
nature of Native American ancestral divergence from northeast Asian
populations, genetic isolation, and expansion into the Americas.
The most recent comprehensive ancient mitogenomic analysis (13)
indicates that Native American ancestors diverged from Siberian
populations between 24,900 and 18,400 years ago with population
expansion associated with female lineage diversification sometime
between ~16,000 to 13,000 years ago. These results are consistent
with a large-scale genomic study based on mostly modern Native
American and Siberian data (14). We should be careful to insist on
confidence intervals rather than relying on mean or median esti-
mates, because the former more accurately reflect the precision of
the data. This approach also results in consistency with a wider range
of colonization models rather than narrowly limiting the options.
Models of diversification should encompass migration from the
geographic location of the ancestral Native American population,
which is currently unknown, but probably includes expansion into
northeastern Siberia and Beringia. As a possible working hypothe-
sis, if Native American ancestors were situated in southern Siberia
20,000 years ago, then the post–16,000-year expansion must include
migration into northeast Asia.
Genetic analyses dependent on data from modern populations do
not bear directly on the geographic locations of the divergence events
(13). For instance, the data used to generate the Beringian Incubation

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Archeological sites,
post 8 ka
Fig. 1. Northwest North America with archeological sites older than 10,000 calibrated years before the present (Supplementary Materials) and proposed colo-
nization routes: IFC and NPC. Glacial ice extent (white) from (48), and archeological site and geological sample locations summarized in (12, 78). Laurentide Ice Sheet
limits (dotted lines) from (55). ka, thousand years; IFC, ice-free corridor; NPC, North Pacific coast.
Model only require that Native American ancestors were geographi-
cally isolated from wherever the East Asian/Siberian ancestors in-
habited during the time of isolation (15). The genetic data do not
require that this isolation occurred in central or eastern Beringia—
it could range across a vast area, from Cis-Baikal to Hokkaido. So
far, complete nuclear genomes from ancient samples produced in
recent years (16–18) are not able either to substantially narrow the
divergence estimate or to clarify spatial routes of the initial peopling.
A recent analysis of the 11,500-year-old Upward Sun River 1 ge-
nome (19) suggests that Native Americans descend from a single
population that separated from East Asians by 26,100 to 23,900
years ago, with two deep branches: an Ancient Beringian popula-
tion that split off ~22,000 to 18,000 years ago and a second branch
that split into northern and southern lineages ~17,500 to 14,600
years ago (19). Earlier gene flow between ancestral Native Americans
and Ancient North Eurasians (ANEs) (represented by Mal’ta and
Afontova individuals) between ~25,000 and 20,000 years ago strongly
suggests geographic proximity of these groups, somewhere in
southern Siberia, where all ANE individuals have been located (see
fig. S1 for localities and regions mentioned in the text). The record
of human remains in northeast Asia is very sparse, but they have
been recovered at Yana RHS, dating to ~27,000 years ago (20). Un-
fortunately, no ancient DNA analysis has yet been published, but
Yana’s location at the extreme western edge of Beringia will make it
difficult to draw firm conclusions about populations present in the
rest of western, central, and eastern Beringia, for example, for 1500
to 2000 km to the southern Beringian coasts or 2500 km to Alaska.
The lack of an unequivocal human presence in the entire region
during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) between the Yana occu-
pation (during a warm period) and the clear expansion of Diuktai
Culture (Late Upper Paleolithic) populations moving from south to
north after 16,000 years ago suggests a temporary expansion of
Middle Upper Paleolithic populations followed by later contraction
during the LGM followed by expansion after the onset of deglaciation
(21, 22).
Potter et al., Sci. Adv. 2018; 4 : eaat5473 8 August 2018
Archeological sites, >13 ka
Archeological sites, 13–10 ka
Geological/biological samples,
15.7 – 13.3 ka, indicating ice-free
and/or vegetated conditions
Glacial ice limits
(55)
13.4 ka
14.0 ka
15.0 ka
Glacial ice
at 14.8 ka
(48)
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The locations of ancestral Native Americans between ~20,000 and
15,000 years ago remain unknown, but two scenarios have been
proposed (19). Scenario 1 posits that the split of Ancient Beringians
and other Native Americans occurred in northeast Asia/Siberia,
while scenario 2 posits that this split occurred in eastern Beringia
(Alaska). Current archeological and paleoecological data support
scenario 1. There is no secure evidence of ~20,000-year-old American
sites, while there is abundant evidence of human occupation in
northeast Asia (for example, southern Siberia, Amur basin, Primor’ye,
and Japanese archipelago) (fig. S1) (23). The LGM is regionally
characterized by very cold and arid conditions with evidence for
depopulation of north Asia and no evidence throughout Eurasia for
northward expansions of humans (24, 25). Previous genetic models
of Native American demography indicate a bottleneck during this
period, with expansion only after 16,000 to 13,000 years ago (13, 26).
We observe a clear pattern of human expansion from Siberia to
Beringia around 16,000 to 14,000 years (12) and the first unequivocal
and widespread occupations south of glacial ice in the Americas after
13,500 years ago, associated with Clovis and Fishtail complex tech-
nologies (27–29). We note that both point types are continent-­wide
in North and South America, respectively. They are the only point
types with such broad distributions and are consistent with coloniz-
ing processes (30–32), although they might also represent commu-
nication of ideas among low-density early populations.
We have firmer geographic constraints on these populations af-
ter about 12,600 years ago. Ancient Beringians, associated with the
Denali complex/Paleoarctic tradition, were in Alaska and adjacent
areas between 12,500 and 6000 years ago (19). Although the northern
lineage (including Na-Dene, Algonquian, Salish, Tsimshian, and
Haida) appears constrained to northern North America (33), the
southern lineage directly links with Clovis (Anzick) (16–18). How-
ever, we have no direct genetic evidence arising from populations
associated with pre-Clovis sites linking them with later Native
Americans. Thus, we should be careful to distinguish potential failed
migrations versus the direct ancestors of Clovis and later Paleoindians.
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We also note that pre-Clovis sites continue to vary in site integrity,
that is, clear associations of secure dates and unambiguous cultural
materials. There appear to be relatively few technological or adap-
tive connections among the proposed pre-Clovis sites, or with (lat-
er) unequivocal Paleoindian complexes, represented by hundreds of
sites and thousands of artifacts across the Americas (34, 35). How-
ever, analyses by (36) have shown that currently dated Clovis sites
represent a sample that came from a population of sites that date to
a time span covering 1070 to 835 years. This suggests that it is pos-
sible that some pre-Clovis sites after ~15,000 years ago may repre-
sent Clovis ancestors or are Clovis sites that lack diagnostic artifact
types.
POTENTIAL MIGRATION ROUTES
We review here issues with both North Pacific coast (NPC) and ice-
free corridor (IFC) routes of colonization of mid-continental North
America (Fig. 1). We note that an NPC route could originate along
southern Beringia or from interior Beringia. The IFC route has sev-
eral potential branches funneling in from the north. These include
a route west of the Mackenzie River between the northern sections
of the Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice Sheets, or through the Liard
and Peace River areas, which also deglaciated early (37).
A coastal colonization route remains a viable hypothesis; however,
several issues relating to the proposed coastal migration have been
typically ignored (12). Contrary to commonly asserted claims, the
entire late Pleistocene coast was not submerged due to rising sea
levels. A comprehensive meta-analysis (38) reviewing paleoecoastal
geomorphology from Puget Sound to the Alaska Peninsula indicated
that more than half of the northwest Pacific coastal regions retained
preserved pre-Clovis–aged shorelines (Fig. 2). Surveys in these re-
gions have so far failed to discover sites securely dated to older than
~12,600 years ago (1600 years later than the earliest unequivocal
sites in interior Beringia), contradicting common assertions of an
early coastal migration (12). A few potential earlier sites that have
been reported recently, including Triquet Island, remain unreported
in peer-reviewed sources. Calvert Island cultural materials includ-
ing human footprints are associated with bracketing ages of be-
tween 13,300 and 12,700 years ago (Stratum X) and 12,650 years ago
14-0
14.5-0
12-0 6-0 17-0 10-0
17-0 15-13 + 5-0
11.0-0
10.1-0
10.5-0
Pre-Clovis coasts below modern sea level (submerged)
Pre-Clovis coasts above modern sea level
Fig. 2. Sea-level curves by region and periods above modern sea level (in thousands of calibrated years before the present) (that is, pre-Clovis occupations
would be potentially accessible if they are extant), adapted from data in (38, 79).
Potter et al., Sci. Adv. 2018; 4 : eaat5473 8 August 2018
(Stratum IX) (39). Hunter Island (40) contains materials that may
date to ~13,500 years ago or to the Younger Dryas (both radiocarbon
dates come from the same layer and do not overlap). Similarly,
Kildit Narrows contains scattered materials from a charcoal-rich
layer with three nonoverlapping associated dates of ~13,600, 12,800,
and 10,700 years ago (40). In the latter two cases, the association of
the cultural materials and dates is unclear.
Throughout most (~2000 km) of the hypothetical NPC route,
from Yakutat Bay to the Aleutians, the earliest human occupations
post-date 8000 years ago (more than 6000 years after the earliest
interior Beringian occupations), long after shorelines stabilized,
and using technology derived from earlier interior traditions
(Fig. 1) (41, 42). Furthermore, the Siberian Diuktai Culture (~18,000
to 12,000 years ago) is terrestrial, while there is no evidence for
coastal or maritime economies along the northwest Pacific coast
from the Kuriles, Kamchatka, Chukotka, or the Okhotsk Sea coast
until the middle Holocene (43). East Beringian obsidian distribu-
tion patterns show long-distance east-west movement of obsidian
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from interior sources between 14,000 and 13,000 years ago, while
coastal sources were only used 4900 to 2300 years after the earliest
interior use, and no coastal obsidian has been found substantially
inland (12). If Paleoindian ancestors moved along the southern
coastal edge of Beringia, we would expect earlier sites in adjacent
Pacific drainages (for example, Copper and Susitna rivers) and later
occupations in the deep interior (for example, Tanana and Yukon
rivers). Extant data show the earliest occupations along the Tanana
River (~14,200 years ago), later expansion of related technologies
into the Pacific drainages (~12,000 years ago), and much later ex-
pansion to the coast (~8000 years ago). All these patterns are incon-
sistent with an initial coastal migration along the southern edge of
Beringia before 16,000 years ago (12).
More research is required to assess resource bases along the NPC
route. Some coastal refugia have been identified in the southern
part of the coastal route [for example, (44, 45)], whereas the record
is sparse to the north, including the Alexander Archipelago, southern
coastal Alaska, the Alaska Peninsula, and the Aleutians [see review
in (12)]. Anadromous fish could have been a stable resource for hu-
mans, but the earliest evidence of salmon fishing is in interior Alaska
(46, 47). Other complications to a coastal route include the potential
14.1-0
14.5-0
15-0
13.5-0
15-0 15-11.5 + 5-0
15.5-13.0 + 6-0
14 + 4-0
17-0
16-14 + 8-0 16-12 + 4-0
4-0
7-0
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presence of sea ice (pack and drift), recurrent volcanism, and potential
reduction in kelp richness and abundance in periglacial environ-
ments (12). The ecological viability of large stretches of the coastal
route has not been fully evaluated yet, and more work needs to be
done before we can identify the time periods when this region could
support human populations from the Aleutian area to Puget Sound.
Alternatively, another potential entry to the NPC from southwestern
Yukon is constrained by the deglaciation of the White Pass, estimated
between 13,500 and 13,000 years ago (48), likely too late to serve as
a route for Paleoindian ancestors.
The enigmatic record at Bluefish Cave raises the possibility of
population pulses into eastern Beringia as early as 24,000 years ago
(49). We note that if there was successful settlement in the LGM, we
should see more abundant evidence of sites in the succeeding mil-
lennia, which we do not. In contrast, a substantial continuous re-
cord begins ~14,200 years ago at Swan Point CZ4b with multiple
hearth features and overlapping dates on hearth charcoal and asso-
ciated fauna, which represents an East Beringian branch of the geo-
graphically extensive Siberian Diuktai Culture (50). East Beringian
tradition populations around 15,000 to 14,000 years ago would be
adapted to expanding habitat in the northern funnels of the IFC.
The southern funnel of the IFC had a detectable human presence by
13,300 years ago (Fig. 1), where a camel and horses were butchered
in an earliest Clovis or pre-Clovis time range in Alberta’s St. Mary
Reservoir (51–53).
Any evaluation of the IFC must rest on a secure geological foun-
dation, involving a vast region affected by intense glacial and parag-
lacial dynamics that challenge geologists and paleoecologists. The
IFC region has received episodic attention over the last several
decades. There is currently, however, an almost unprecedented
level of earth science interest in the central portion of the IFC,
applying methods previously unavailable [from mapping using
light detection and ranging (LIDAR) data to the increased use of
luminescence and cosmogenic nuclide dating techniques on non-
Fig. 3. Chronology of the central IFC. OSL and IRSL dates indicate minima ages of deglaciation and pro-glacial lake drainage (55), and calibrated 14C dates indicate
minima dates for fauna and vegetation (12, 35, 61, 63, 80–82). Demic expansion estimates of Native American ancestors from (13). All dates are shown with 1 SD.
Potter et al., Sci. Adv. 2018; 4 : eaat5473 8 August 2018
biological materials] and leaving its geological framework in a fluid
state of understanding. Timing of the LGM and subsequent degla-
cial sequences vary considerably in northern and southern corridor
regions (54). Currently evolving geoarcheological and paleo­
ecological studies of interior routes indicate that IFC deglaciation
initiated by 19,000 years ago. A series of 76 10Be surface exposure
cosmogenic nuclide ages reveal that intermediate and high eleva-
tion sites in the Peace River Corridor bottleneck were ice-free be-
tween 15,000 and 14,000 years ago, while 22 luminescence dates on
eolian sand indicate that a broad subaerially exposed landscape was
present by at least ~15,000 years ago (and possibly earlier) and that
glacial lakes had already substantially drained (Fig. 3) (37, 55–57).
Figure 1 illustrates the locations of these key late Pleistocene
(and pre-Clovis) geological and paleoecological samples. At least
two routes into the Peace River Corridor have been proposed: one
along the east side of the Mackenzie Mountains (solid red line
in Fig. 1), and the other to the west of the Mackenzie Mountains
through the Yukon Plateau and Pelly River valley to the Liard River
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(dotted red line in Fig. 1) (58).
Moreover, 14C dates on taiga vole indicate vegetated conditions
in some areas of the bottleneck by at least 14,870 years ago (59), and
a poplar fragment from Boone Lake in the uplands of northwestern
Alberta (60) indicates the presence of trees by at least 13,500 years ago.
These data suggest a vegetated Corridor well before minimum age
estimates of ecological viability derived from the presence of bison
and horse at 13,100 years ago (61, 62) and plant macrofossils and
environmental DNA at Charlie Lake at 12,600 years ago (63) (Fig. 3).
Beyond the IFC region, other researchers have identified alternative
inland routes through unglaciated Cordilleran areas (64–66), where
resources such as sheep may have persisted through the LGM (67).
Collectively, these data indicate that the Corridor and adjacent in-
terior areas could have emerged as a potential route for ancestral
Native Americans as early as 15,000 to 14,000 years ago, and that
movements in either direction along the entire length of the Corridor
Other events
Dating method
OSL
IRSL
14
C
Biological “viability”
minima according to (63)
Bison dispersal minima (61)
Earliest Clovis
Swan Point
Paisley Cave Demic
Page-Ladson expansion
Monte Verde
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were feasible well before Clovis times (12, 68). Both pathways, inte-
rior and coastal, allow viable hypotheses that need not be mutually
exclusive and should be further tested.
STEMMED POINTS AS CULTURAL DIAGNOSTICS
Several authors (1, 3) have suggested that a variety of stemmed
points in different contexts represent a coastal expansion before
16,000 years ago. This hypothesis is at a nascent stage, rather than
[as expressed in (1)] the strongest hypothesis on offer. Stemming is
a widespread form of haft design innovated numerous times across
multiple continents and is thus not an appropriate derived character
on which to base a hypothesis of cultural affiliation. No detailed tech-
nological analysis has established empirical validity to connect these
disparate assemblages. Proponents have noted (7) that stemmed points,
crescents, and shell middens date between 12,200 and 11,400 years ago
before the present (cal yr B.P.), about 1000 to 2000 years after wide-
spread Beringian and Clovis sites. Terrestrially oriented subsistence
practices are evident across North America several centuries before
the appearance of evidence for coastal adaptations. All the well-dated
early coastal sites from North America are younger than the earliest
Clovis sites. Two early near-coastal sites in South America, Monte
Verde and Huaca Prieta (69, 70), have few technological connections
with later Paleoindian groups, including the Western Stemmed tra-
dition of western North America.
Contrary to previous assertions (1, 3), Ushki Lake and Paisley
Cave stemmed points are dissimilar to Jomon tanged points in key
ways; despite the map symbols, these points come from interior
sites reflecting terrestrial adaptations. The Channel Islands sites are
not associated with dated stemmed points (and stemmed points in
California are not well dated). Triquet Island, apparently dating to
after earlier interior Beringian sites, may prove to be an early coastal
site, but results for it have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed
journal. Several other published coastal sites in this region have
been argued by some to contain pre-Clovis archeology, but they
have problems including unclear association with human occupa-
tion or multiple nonoverlapping dates on the same strata (12).
There is still debate on the dating of some of the Western Stemmed
Tradition material (71–73), as most of the securely dated sites post-
date Clovis by a considerable margin.
CONCLUSIONS
There are widespread patterns that remain unexplained by the
coastal hypothesis: Numerous data indicate that the only early
populations known in Siberia, Russian Far East, and Beringia had
terrestrially oriented economies and technologies (74, 75), includ-
ing Ushki Lake, cited by (1) as part of a coastal migration of stemmed
point using populations. Ubiquitous Paleoindian industries are also
generally terrestrial (76), with relatively limited evidence of coastal
exploitation in lower-latitude areas (2). East Beringian obsidian dis-
tributional analyses show an early reliance on interior sources, with
exploitation of coastal sources thousands of years later (12). The
empirical patterning points toward successful terrestrial adaptations
and movement in Siberia, Beringia, and the Americas south of the
ice sheets.
Although a wide variety of data summarized here suggest a pre-
ponderance of evidence for the IFC route over the NPC route, we
do not take a dogmatic position here—both remain viable colonization
Potter et al., Sci. Adv. 2018; 4 : eaat5473 8 August 2018
pathways. Current genetic data provide a relatively wide window of
constraints for location of the genetic isolation of Native American
ancestors, and later expansion from Siberia into the Americas (and
possibly northeast Asia) around 16,000 to 13,500 years ago. As geneti-
cists and archeologists and indigenous communities work together
in a respectful and mutually beneficial manner, the opportunities to
analyze additional human remains to infer population history in the
Americas grow. In parallel, systematic paleogenetic analyses of se-
curely dated sediments (77) could potentially directly reveal human
presence.
Current archeological data fit with terrestrial or coastal migrations
(or both) that probably occurred well after the LGM, most probably
after 16,000 years ago and before the widespread Paleoindian occu-
pations around 13,500 years ago. This configuration of the empirical
evidence explains the absence of consensus among archeologists and
other scientists regarding both routes and timing of the peopling of
the Americas, and should prompt us to continue systematic, geomor-
phologically targeted investigations along both pathways.
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SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS
Supplementary material for this article is available at http://advances.sciencemag.org/cgi/
content/full/4/8/eaat5473/DC1
Table S1. Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene components illustrated in Fig. 1.
Fig. S1. Locations mentioned in the text.
References (83–141)
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Acknowledgments: We thank the two anonymous peer reviewers for their comments.
Funding: J.W.I. acknowledges the support of the Landrex Distinguish Professorship. R.L.K.
acknowledges support from Germany’s Humboldt Fellowship. B.L. is a Future Fellow of the
Australian Research Council. Author contributions: The project was conceived by B.A.P.,
J.D.R., and V.T.H. and headed by B.A.P. B.A.P., A.B.B., V.T.H., C.E.H., J.W.I., R.L.K., and B.L. wrote
the manuscript with input from all authors. Competing interests: The authors declare that
they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data needed to
evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary
Materials. Additional data related to this paper may be requested from the authors.
Submitted 19 March 2018
Accepted 26 June 2018
Published 8 August 2018
10.1126/sciadv.aat5473
Citation: B. A. Potter, J. F. Baichtal, A. B. Beaudoin, L. Fehren-Schmitz, C. V. Haynes, V. T. Holliday,
C. E. Holmes, J. W. Ives, R. L. Kelly, B. Llamas, R. S. Malhi, D. S. Miller, D. Reich, J. D. Reuther,
S. Schiffels, T. A. Surovell, Current evidence allows multiple models for the peopling of the
Americas. Sci. Adv. 4, eaat5473 (2018).
8 of 8
Current evidence allows multiple models for the peopling of the Americas
Ben A. Potter, James F. Baichtal, Alwynne B. Beaudoin, Lars Fehren-Schmitz, C. Vance Haynes, Vance T. Holliday, Charles
E. Holmes, John W. Ives, Robert L. Kelly, Bastien Llamas, Ripan S. Malhi, D. Shane Miller, David Reich, Joshua D. Reuther,
Stephan Schiffels and Todd A. Surovell

Sci Adv 4 (8), eaat5473.

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aat5473

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